This whole thing should feel exhilarating and wild and unbelievable, because it surely is all three, but Sean Obi continually chooses a different word.

"It felt right," Obi said again and again.

Obi arrived on the Duke campus for a weekend visit about a month ago, a hot new name in college hoops, a monstrous 6-foot-9, 265-pound transfer checking out one of the sport's longtime giants.

He spent most of his time with Blue Devils assistant Jon Scheyer. And he knew all about Jon Scheyer beforehand.

"Oh yeah, 2010," Obi said. "He won the championship."

He saw the architecture of the campus, the towering gray stone buildings that give the place this Gothic feel. He saw Jabari Parker, and of course, he met Coach K.

"He knew everything about me," Obi said. "He loved my story."

It begins in the city of Kaduna, Nigeria, where his family's home burned down during religious riots, according to a 2011 Greenwich Magazine story. Sean Obi was 6 years old.

Obi's parents worked to not only restore, but to provide their children with something extra, too. So Obi could watch ESPN, a luxury not available to every young teenager in Nigeria. So Obi could watch the NBA in its glory days.

That's KG, Pierce and Ray Allen. In college hoops, he liked the Big Two. And yes, that's John Wall and DeMarcus Cousins. Of course, he remembers the team that won the national championship that year, though. That'd be Scheyer and the Dukies.

He even knew of Lamar Odom, although he may have recognized him as Lam-Lam.

"I was a big fan of the Kardashians," Obi admitted, not a hint of shame in his voice. "Having seen these TV shows and everything, it kind of helped with the transition."

The timeline is the most incredible aspect of his story: At 6-foot-9 and a slim 200 pounds, Obi began seriously playing basketball in January 2010. He loved it immediately. Felt right, he said. By April, the wheels were in motion for Obi to move to the United States, not uncommon for promising young African basketball players.

As Obi points out, his good friend Paschal Chukwu of Fairfield Prep, headed to Providence this fall, also is from Nigeria. UConn's Amida Brimah, from Ghana, took a similar path as well.

Here's Obi's: An oil trader from Greenwich, Steve Eggers, had heard about Obi from a friend; Eggers frequently was on business in Nigeria. The family had a son, Hunter, who was Obi's age and a devoted basketball player himself. They considered becoming Obi's host family.

They talked for months with Obi, each conversation better than the previous. He could already relate to Hunter, talking the Celtics' Big Three and, hey, maybe a little Kardashians. And when Obi got off the plane in August 2010, he hugged Bobbi Eggers, already calling her mom.

Why?

"It's just something I felt," Obi said. "You know, I felt it. It was something special from Day One."

In America for the first time, the 15-year-old Obi was introduced to life in Greenwich, one of the nation's wealthiest zip codes. The Eggers house, he said, was amazing.

"Indoor pool, outdoor pool, it's very unique," he said, laughing. "It's not the common life. But I wasn't into the materialistic aspect. I was more into the family."

There, Hunter Eggers joined him. There, Obi honed in on academics, always a core value of his family back in Nigeria. During a recent conversation with his father, Obi once bragged that he had a 3.3 GPA. Turns out his older sister, Christine Obi, who came to the U.S. shortly after Sean, has near a 4.0 at USC.

"You've got to pick it up," Obi's dad told him.

"But I'm playing basketball, too!" Obi retorted with a laugh.

He gobbled up double-doubles in Conference USA, ranking near the nation's leaders in rebounds per 40 minutes (14.1). Obi went for 25 points and 19 boards against South Alabama, and later in the season dropped 22 and 17 on Marshall. It wasn't until the resignation of Rice's coach, Ben Braun, that Obi began to think transfer. Eleven days after Braun left, the school hired VCU assistant Mike Rhoades. Later that week, Obi asked for his release.

He had gone from Nigeria to Greenwich to Houston, Texas, seamlessly transitioning each step of the way, but he admits he "doesn't like change," especially in coaching. It made him feel uncomfortable. When the coaches who recruited him left, he needed to go, too.

Obi will sit out the 2014-15 season with three years of eligibility remaining.

With wide-bodied double-double machines at a premium in college hoops, it's no stretch to count Obi among the nation's most sought-after transfers this spring. The night he was released from scholarship, his high school coach at GFA, Doug Scott, received over 100 calls.

"Oregon, Cal, Stanford, UConn, Providence, BC, Georgia Tech, top programs, you know?" Obi said. "I can keep going. A bunch of schools. The next few days, Michigan came in, and Duke came in, and that's when I was like `Oh, this is a pretty big deal.'"

The list would be trimmed, as lists of 100 usually are, and Obi would visit Vanderbilt first and then Duke. Academics first. The family mantra.

On his visit, Obi said Coach K told him: "We want you, Sean. We need you." Truth is, Duke's hardly ever in the market for transfers, and when it is, the transfer usually pays off: Davidson's Seth Curry became a starter, as did Mississippi State's Rodney Hood, who declared for the NBA Draft after one season in Durham.

Obi left Duke on a Saturday night and jetted back to Fairfield County, all but sure he'd become the region's first Blue Devil since Trinity Catholic's Dave McClure committed to Krzyzewski in 2003. He took Sunday, evaluated everything, and then called each college he'd seriously considered to share the news.